Chapter 51

WHAT purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and
proving Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen
that the question was not before me in a distinct shape, until it was
put before me by a wiser head than my own.

But, when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation,
I was seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the
matter down -- that I ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see
Mr Jaggers, and come at the bare truth. I really do not know
whether I felt that I did this for Estella's sake, or whether I was
glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much
concerned, some rays of the romantic interest that had so long sur-
rounded her. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the
truth.

Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Ger-
rard-street that night. Herbert's representations that if I did, l
should probably be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's
safety would depend upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On
the understanding, again and again reiterated, that come what
would, I was to go to Mr Jaggers to-morrow, I at length submitted
to keep quiet, and to have my hurts looked after, and to stay at
home. Early next morning we went out together, and at the corner
of Giltspur-street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way into
the City, and took my way to Little Britain.

There were periodical occasions when Mr Jaggers and Wemmick
went over the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and
put all things straight. On these occasions Wemmick took his
books and papers into Mr Jaggers's room, and one of the up-stairs
clerks came down into the outer office. Finding such clerk on
Wemmick's post that morning, I knew what was going on; but, I
was not sorry to have Mr Jaggers and Wemmick together, as
Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to com-
promise him.

My appearance with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over
my shoulders, favoured my object. Although I had sent Mr Jaggers
a brief account of the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet
I had to give him all the details now; and the speciality of the oc-
casion caused our talk to be less dry and hard, and less strictly re-
gulated by the rules of evidence, than it had been before. While I
described the disaster, Mr Jaggers stood, according to his wont,
before the fire. Wemmick leaned back in his chair, staring at me,
with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put hori-
zontally into the post. The two brutal casts, always inseparable in
my mind from the official proceedings, seemed to be congestively
considering whether they didn't smell fire at the present moment.

My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then pro-
duced Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred
pounds for Herbert. Mr Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his
head when I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them
over to Wemmick, with instructions to draw the cheque for his
signature. While that was in course of being done, I looked on at
Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr Jaggers, poising and swaying him-
self on his well-polished boots, looked on at me. `I am sorry, Pip,'
said he, as I put the cheque in my pocket, when he had signed it,
`that we do nothing for you.'

`Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,' I returned,
`whether she could do nothing for me, and I told her No.'

`Everybody should know his own business,' said Mr Jaggers.
And I saw Wemmick's lips form the words `portable property.'

`l should not have told her No, if I had been you,' said Mr
Jaggers; `but every man ought to know his own business
best.'

As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I
had at heart, I said, turning on Mr Jaggers:

`I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her
to give me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and
she gave he all she possessed.'

`Did she?' said Mr Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots
and then straightening himself. `Hah! I don't think I should have
done so, if I had been Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her
own business best.'

`I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child
than Miss Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.'

Mr Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated `Mother?'

`I have seen her mother within these three days.'

`Yes?' said Mr Jaggers.

`And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently.'

`Yes?' said Mr Jaggers.

`Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do,'
said I. `I know her father too.'

A certain stop that Mr Jaggers came to in his manner -- he was
too self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its
being brought to an indefinably attentive stop -- assured me that he
did not know who her father was. This I had strongly suspected
from Provis's account (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having
kept himself dark; which I pieced on to the fact that he himself was
not Mr Jaggers's client until some four years later, and when he
could have no reason for claiming his identity. But, I could not be
sure of this unconsciousness on Mr Jaggers's part before, though I
was quite sure of it now.

`So! You know the young lady's futher, Pip?' said Mr Jaggers.

`Yes,' I replied, `and his name is Provis -- from New South
Wales.'

Even Mr Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the
slightest start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed
and the soonest checked, but he did start, though he made it a part
of the action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wem-
mick received the announcement I am unable to say, for I was
afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr Jaggers's sharpness should
detect that there had been some communication unknown to him
between us.

`And on what evidence, Pip,' asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as
he paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, `does Provis
make this claim?'

`He does not make it,' said I, `and has never made it, and has no
knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.'

For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply
was so unexpected that Mr Jaggers put the handkerchief back into
his pocket without completing the usual performance, folded his
arms and looked with stern attention at me, though with an im-
movable face.

Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one re-
servation that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham
what I in fact knew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to
that. Nor, did I look towards Wemmick until I had finished all I had
to tell, and had been for some time silently meeting Mr Jaggers's
look. When I did at last turn my eyes in Wemmick's direction, I
found that he had unposted his pen, and was intent upon the table
before him.

`Hahl' said Mr Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers
on the table. `-- What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr.
Pip came in?'

But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made
a passionate, almost an indignant, appeal to him to be more frank
and manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I
had lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery
I had made: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my
spirits. I represented myself as being surely worthy of some little
confidence from him, in return for the confidence I had just now
imparted. I said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mis-
trust him, but I wanted assurance of the truth from him. And if he
asked me why I wanted it and why I thought I had any right to it,
I would tell him, little as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had
loved Estella dearly and long, and that, although I had lost her and
must live a bereaved life, whatever concerned her was still nearer
and dearer to me than anything else in the world. And seeing that
Mr Jaggers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite obdur-
ate, under this appeal, I turned to Wemmick, and said, `Wemmick,
I know you to be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleas-
ant home, and your old father, and all the innocent cheerful playful
ways with which you refresh your business life. And I entreat
you to say a word for me to Mr Jaggers, and to represent to him
that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open
with me!'

I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than
Mr Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a mis-
giving crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed
from his employment; but, it melted as I saw Mr Jaggers relax into
something like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder.

`What's all this?' said Mr Jaggers. `You with an old father, and
you with pleasant and playful ways ?'

`Well!' returned Wemmick. `If I don't bring 'em here, what
does it matter?'

`Pip,' said Mr Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling
openly, `this man must be the most cunning impostor in all
London.'

Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently
still distrustful that the other was taking him in.

`You with a pleasant home?' said Mr Jaggers.

`Since it don't interfere with business,' returned Wemmick, `let
it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might
be planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own,
one of these days, when you're tired of all this work.'

Mr Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times,
and actually drew a sigh. `Pip,' said he, `we won't talk about ``poor
dreams;'' you know more about such things than I, having much
fresher experience of that kind. But now, about this other matter.
I'll put a case to you. Mind! I admit nothing.'

He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he ex-
pressly said that he admitted nothing.

`Now, Pip,' said Mr Jaggers, `put this case. Put the case that a
woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her
child concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her
legal adviser, on his representing to her that he must know, with an
eye to the latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about that
child. Put the case that at the same time he held a trust to find a
child for an eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.'

`I follow you, sir.'

`Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all
he saw of children, was, their being generated in great numbers for
certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly
tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the
case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped,
transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hang-
man, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all
the children he saw in his daily business life, he had reason to look
upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come
to his net -- to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans,
bedevilled somehow.'

`I follow you, sir.'

`Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the
heap, who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared
make no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser
had this power: ``I know what you did, and how you did it. You
came so and so, this was your manner of attack and this the manner
of resistance, you went so and so, you did such and such things to
divert suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell it you
all. Part with the child, unless it should be necessary to produce it
to clear you, and then it shall be produced. Give the child into my
hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If you are saved, your
child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is still saved.'' Put the
case that this was done, and that the woman was cleared.'

`I understand you perfectly.'

`But that I make no admissions?'

`That you make no admissions.' And Wemmick repeated, `No
admissions.'

`Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little
shaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty,
she was scared out of the ways of the world and went to him to be
sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down
the old wild violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its break-
ing out, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you
comprehend the imaginary case?'

`Quite.'

`Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money.
That the mother was still living. That the father was still living.
That the mother and father unknown to one another, were dwell-
ing within so many miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one an-
other. That the secret was still a secret, except that you had got
wind of it. Put that last case to yourself very carefully.'

`I do.'

`I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully.'

And Wemmick said, `I do.'

`For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father's?
I think he would not be much the better for the mother. For the
mother's? I think if she had done such a deed she would be safer
where she was. For the daughter's? I think it would hardly serve
her, to establish her parentage for the information of her husband,
and to drag her back to disgrace, after an escape of twenty years,
pretty secure to last for life. But, add the case that you had loved
her, Pip, and had made her the subject of those ``poor dreams''
which have, at one time or another, been in the heads of more
men than you think likely, then I tell you that you had better -- and
would much sooner when you had thought well of it -- chop off
that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand,
and then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off,
too.

I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely
touched his lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr Jaggers did
the same. `Now, Wemmick,' said the latter then, resuming his
usual manner, `what item was it you were at, when Mr Pip came
in?'

Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that
the odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several
times: with this difference now, that each of them seemed suspici-
ous, not to say conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and
unprofessional light to the other. For this reason, I suppose, they
were now inflexible with one another; Mr Jaggers being highly
dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever
there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had never
seen them on such ill terms; for generally they got on very well
indeed together.

But, they were both happily relieved by the opportune appear-
ance of Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his
nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my ap-
pearance within those walls. This individual, who, either in his own
person or in that of some member of his family, seemed to be always
in trouble (which in that place meant Newgate), called to announce
that his eldest daughter was taken up on suspicion of shop-lifting.
As he imparted this melancholy circumstance to Wemmick, Mr
Jaggers standing magisterially before the fire and taking no share
in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to twinkle with a tear.

`What are you about?' demanded Wemmick, with the utmost
indignation. `What do you come snivelling here for?'

`I didn't go to do it, Mr Wemmick.'

`You did,' said Wemmick. `How dare you? You're not in a fit
state to come here, if you can't come here without spluttering like
a bad pen. What do you mean by it?'

`A man can't help his feelings, Mr Wemmick,' pleaded Mike.

`His what?' demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. `Say that
again! '

`Now, look here my man,' said Mr Jaggers, advancing a step,
and pointing to the door. `Get out of this office. I'll have no feelings
here. Get out.'

`It serves you right,' said Wemmick. `Get out.'

So the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr Jaggers
and Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good under-
standing, and went to work again with an air of refreshment upon
them as if they had just had lunch.